1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cholesterol regulating material, a cholesterol or body weight regulating composition which contains an enzyme resistant starch (hereinafter referred to as "RS") as an active ingredient for regulation of cholesterol and for prevention of obesity, and to a food, food material and beverage, and method for regulating cholesterol or body weight.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, attention has been paid to dietary fibers with the worldwide increasing interest in healthy diet life. Specifically, dietary fibers are being clarified to be effective for prevention of obesity and diseases of adults (such as arteriosclerosis, diabetes, cardiopathy, cancer, etc.), from the scientific and biological view. In particular, there are various reports to refer to the fact that dietary fibers are effective for inhibiting elevation of cholesterol level in blood, which is considered to be highly related to arteriosclerosis and ischemic cardiopathy. For instance, most of such dietary fibers are composed of ingredients of non-starchy vegetable polysaccharides, such as pectin (fruits), mannan (konjak or devil's-tongue), betaglucan (oats), hemicellulose, cellulose (corn, wheat, barley), etc.
Where dietary fibers are applied to those who need them for the purpose of inhibiting elevation of the cholesterol level in blood or for other various purposes, the physiological effect often varies in accordance with the kind of the dietary fibers or the effect is often sufficient only when a fairly large amount of dietary fibers are taken. However, in the case of foods from which a large amount of dietary fibers are to be taken, the quality of such foods is often lowered as the foods of themselves in view of the taste or texture thereof and such foods would not meet with consumer acceptance. As a result, such foods could not be said to be always suitable for continuous ingestion.
As an example of non-starchy vegetable polysaccharide is known CELLACE (registered trade mark by Nippon Food Processing Co.) which comprises arabinoxylan as an active ingredient. However, this is not sufficiently satisfactory, like other dietary fibers, in the point of preventing elevation of cholesterol level in blood, especially low-density-lipoprotein-cholesterol (hereinafter referred to as "LDL-cholesterol") therein which is said to be positively related to arteriosclerosis.
With respect to the point of the effect of lowering the LDL-cholesterol in blood, cholestyramine (for example, QUESTRAN: registered trade mark by Bristol-Myers Co.) is excellent, which is a chemical synthetic product. The cholestyramine of a medicine for hyperlipidemia is an anion-exchange resin as the element in itself and it is known that the cholestyramine acts to absorb bile acid in intestines and, as a result, lowers the cholesterol level in blood. However, it has an objectionable taste because of the characteristic of the resin of itself, and sweeteners or the like are added thereto for the purpose of reducing the unfavorable taste as much as possible. Despite of such addition, there still remains the problem that the cholestyramine could not be administered with ease. Accordingly, some other substitutes for it, which may easily be administered, are desired.